WEBVTT
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And pastors find health, encouragement, practical advice, soul care,
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and resources that work together to build up your local fellowship and the broader kingdom of God.
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Join hosts Pastor Chris Cole and Dr. Chase Thompson from the Great Commission Association, led by Dr.
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Mike Stewart, as they explore the frontiers of ministry and aim for the goal
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of making every church flourish.
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Hi, I'm Chase. I'm the pastor of Valley Baptist Church in Central California.
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I'm part of the Great Commission Association of Churches that run from Santa
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Barbara, California to San Jose, California.
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And I care about encouraging healthy churches by envisioning members to see
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their high calling in Christ and understand their spiritual gift and their call
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to operate in their ministry.
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Hi, I'm Christopher Cole, and I'm the Associate Director of Missions for the
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Great Commission Association.
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And I care about seeing churches come to a place of flourishing through spiritual
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renewal and missiological renewal, giving them a passion to see their communities
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renewed with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Hey, that's awesome. And Pastor Chris has many, many years of working with churches
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and helping with renewal efforts and actually literally going on live with different
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churches on their campuses,
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working with leaders, helping them turn around, helping them flourish.
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And so it's a great privilege to have him with us today and have this conversation.
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We're going to be focusing on what does a flourishing church look like?
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And one of the things that David Kinnaman, who is the head of a group that focuses
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in on and church growth statistics.
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He says that right now in America,
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People who actually go to church are only going to church two out of every five weekends.
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And pretty much since 2020, churchgoers on average are attending somewhere in
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the neighborhood of 10 or 11 fewer services in 2025 than they did in 2000.
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So that's a lot less services per year, gatherings per year in just 20,
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25 years. So, Pastor Chris, thinking about those statistics and the ones you're
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going to share, what is the state of the church right now?
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Are we flourishing in California? Are we flourishing in America?
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You know, there's a lot of different ways we could answer that question because
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there are churches that are flourishing.
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And I think that one of the temptations is if you are a church that is not currently
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flourishing, it's easy to say, look, around us, no one is flourishing.
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And so it becomes a way of displacement of saying, hey, no one's flourishing,
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no one's healthy, and it's just the really difficult,
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hard times that we are living in right now or this really difficult culture that we're in.
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And there's certainly people that are frustrated by the loss of a lot of cultural
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Christianity and historical Christian ethos that has been common in America.
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But the reality is the church is flourishing all over the world.
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The church is experiencing amazing growth, especially in areas where historically
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it has not necessarily been flourishing.
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You look at sub-Saharan Africa, for example, and the church is flourishing there
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or in places like China or Central and Latin America.
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The church is flourishing there. And even in the United States,
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churches are flourishing and they are effectively reaching their communities.
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Now, all of that is true. It is also true—.
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In our circles, Chase, in Baptist life, particularly Southern Baptist life and
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evangelical life in the United States, the latest data is incredibly troubling.
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And it's been troubling for many years because certain expressions of evangelical
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churches in the United States are not only in decline currently,
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but they've been in decline for a period of about 20 years.
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And it took us a long time to get honest about that. But just to give you some
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recent data, for example, Lifeway Research, our Southern Baptist research organization
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that we have, came up with this data this year.
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It says 79% of the churches that are SVC are currently plateaued or declining.
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And that's up from where we were just a couple of years ago when the number
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was right around 71%. So we've seen in just a couple of years,
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about an 8% shift that showing the problem is worse than we anticipated.
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Only about 21% of SBC churches are currently growing.
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And if a church is not growing, it is almost certainly not flourishing.
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You can go through short seasons where a church can go through a period not of stagnation,
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but of re-entrenchment, regaining, sort of there's not a lot of movement,
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but they're sort of just digging their roots deeper and preparing for that next phase of mission.
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But that can't stay true for a very long period of time.
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If your church isn't growing for any significant period of time,
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you're not seeing new people come into the church, seeing lost people come into
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the church and be saved, then your church is almost certainly already in some
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form of plateau, stagnation, or decline.
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And the thing is that we've seen in our experience with pastors and church leaders
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is that many churches will say
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we're stagnant when in reality they're on a very slow period of decline.
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And sometimes those periods of decline are happening over 50 and 60-year timeframes.
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We've got churches in our own association, for example, whose peak attendance was in 1963.
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Wow.
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And they've been in a period of decline very slowly ever since then.
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And it takes a long time sometimes if the church was particularly healthy for
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them to get to the place where they see themselves as not flourishing.
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Yeah, that's a great point. I will say this. I'm a pastor. A lot of my friends
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are pastors, but in a way, pastors are some of the worst liars out there.
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And what I mean by that, it's not nearly as insulting as it sounds.
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Oh, maybe it is, but we don't learn a lot of math in seminary.
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And I've noticed, and I have been guilty myself of either intentionally or unintentionally
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fudging numbers to make them look better.
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Maybe you weigh, I don't know, 279 pounds and you say, well,
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I weigh in the mid 200s or something like that.
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Maybe your church has lost a significant amount of attendees and used to be
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you averaged in the 80s and now you're in the 60s, but you still remember that.
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Those days when you had 80 something people. And if somebody,
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you know, asks, and for whatever reason, pastors do this all the time,
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they say, you know, how big is your church?
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You'll, you'll usually not give that super accurate number. You'll usually give
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that super optimistic number.
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Maybe lying is an uncharitable way of describing that, but I get the feeling, man, I get the pressure.
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If it's a church member that wants to know, you don't want them to feel bad.
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If it's a friend outside the church that wants to know, you don't want to embarrass yourself.
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And we do have this kind of fixation with numbers that may be a little unhealthy,
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but I also think it's unhealthy when things are not going well.
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In fact, when things are going kind of badly and we're not But fulfilling our
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mission of making disciples, we're taking backward steps, and we're not recognizing that.
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And sometimes just kind of taking a sobering look in the mirror and really understanding
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what's going on with the church is a good way to do that.
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So, Pastor Chris, last episode, you talked a lot about diagnostics.
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How can diagnostics kind of
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hear or help pastors and church leaders understand where their church is?
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Right. Well, I mean, diagnostics is a great term that we talked about this last
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episode because just like you go to the doctor, right, they're going to give
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you certain tests. They're going to check your blood pressure.
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They're going to check your heart rate. They're going to maybe check your blood glucose level.
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They're going to do all of those different kinds of things, and they're going
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to give you a picture of where you're really at. Now, many of us don't go to
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the doctor. I'm terrible about going to the doctor.
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We don't go to the doctor because we don't want to hear what the doctor has
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to say. So one thing I would just say right up front is this.
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A lot of us don't want to analyze the state of our church currently because
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we don't actually want to know the outcome of it.
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Now, the problem with that is that Scripture teaches us that Jesus is diagnosing the church.
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Jesus is not sitting there with the spirit of condemnation, but he is sitting
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there saying, I know what is happening in your church.
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And Revelation chapter 2 and 3 are great examples of that as Jesus speaks to
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seven specific churches that most scholars would say are typological types of
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challenges the churches have faced down through the many centuries since then.
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And Jesus does have a diagnosis for our church.
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He knows what is happening in our church. He knows what's happening in the lives of our leaders.
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And so when we say we don't want to know this, it's sort of like we're turning
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to Jesus and saying, we don't want to listen to you.
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We don't want the Holy Spirit to tell us what our true condition is.
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And so one thing I would just say before we dive into maybe what some of those
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diagnostic tools can look like is diagnosis requires humility.
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It requires the willingness to say, we are not yet where Jesus wants us to be,
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and maybe we are in fact quite far away and we need to return to who Jesus wants us to be.
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So if you don't have that posture of humility, it can be really hard to listen
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to the diagnostics, no matter what the tools are.
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Second component that kind of follows with that is that you have to be willing
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to see yourself accurately.
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Jesus spoke to the church in Laodicea, and he said, I counsel you.
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It's a very interesting word.
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Jesus is counseling the church. He says, let me give you my advice.
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The advice of Jesus is, buy salve from me.
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So that you can see clearly because you're spiritually blinded, right?
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So we have to be willing to do this interactive work with Jesus where we go
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to him and we say, hey, we really want to know what you're doing in the life of this church.
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And we're going to humble ourselves and we're going to open ourselves well to
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listening to what the Spirit is saying to our churches.
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And that's true wherever we're at. One of the most beautiful examples we've
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had in the past couple of years of a church that's had this posture was a church
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that is flourishing in our association. It is healthy. It is growing.
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They're doing really wonderful ministry. They're partnered with other churches,
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and they invited our team in, and they said, look, we know we're doing okay.
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We know we're doing well, but we also know we're not yet everything that Jesus wants us to be.
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And so they had that posture, that humility, and that willingness to say,
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we want to analyze where we're at so that we can become more of who Christ has called us to be.
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So if you're a church that you think, hey, we are in decline,
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you think that we're a church that is maybe we're plateaued,
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or you're a church that you think, hey, we're relatively healthy,
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there's still this same posture of saying we want to hear what Jesus has to
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say to our church, and we want to step into a place of deliberate learning and
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humility so that we can become more of who Christ has called us to be.
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So with that being said, I think that that posture is essential.
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Otherwise, the diagnostics just bounce off of you. We don't really want to hear
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the condition of the church, right?
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Then we have to start taking a look at seeing where we are really at.
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And we use some different tools from a wonderful organization that we partner
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with called Corpus Vitae.
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They help us do some of the analysis. And some of the areas that we use to assess
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in the life of a church is we assess various factors in church health.
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We look for what is their prayer life like? We look at what's their fellowship
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like? We look at how are they engaged with their community?
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What's their sense of outreach and mission? Do they have a healthy discipleship path?
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What's their stewardship look like? Is their organizational structure appropriately
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sized and shaped to fit their mission now? We'll look at all of these kinds
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of things and more in a series of diagnostic tools.
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And then we'll also look at the church's culture.
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Are they dominated by fear or are they a church that's being courageous in their missions?
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Are they a church that is full of healthy conflict engagement or are they a
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church that tends to be very passive aggressive?
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And tends to minimize conflict and not use it in ways that are healthy,
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and that then tends to burst out into negative engagement.
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So there's a lot of different types of tools that we can use,
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but these are some of the things that we use to assess whether or not a church
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is flourishing or flourishing as much as God would have them to flourish.
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Okay, that's great. You've used the plural pronoun we quite a bit.
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So since this is a brand new podcast, and most people listening probably don't know exactly who we are.
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When you say we, who are you talking about?
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We are the Great Commission Association. We're a family of churches on mission
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together, as you said earlier,
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all the way from north end of Santa Barbara County on California's Central Coast,
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all the way up through Silicon Valley into just south of the city of San Francisco,
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distance of about 290 miles.
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And our churches work together to equip and facilitate one another on mission,
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whether that's church planting, church replanting, church renewal,
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sending out people to reach unreached people groups in the Bay Area.
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We do a lot of that kind of work together. And I lead what's called the Mission
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Advance Team of our association.
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And we work with our churches to, with the mission of seeing those churches
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all flourish and help each other flourish.
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You know, we don't see that just as the task of a staff or a group of people,
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but we really believe this is done best when churches help other churches do this.
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So on my team, we have a number of different people that help us do this.
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There's Dr. Chris Smith, there's Dr. CJ Wan and my supervisor and their amazing
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associational leader, Dr. Mike Stewart.
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And then we have a number of other different care personnel and logistical personnel
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that serve on our team to assist our churches in ministering to their communities and to one another.
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We're part of the Southern Baptist group of churches.
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And when I was in Alabama, seven and a half years ago, I had pastored a church
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there, Agape Baptist in Pinson, a great church, great people,
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part of the Birmingham Baptist Association. and Chris Crane right now has just a great leader.
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When I was pastoring there, the association was much less active.
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And I think we heard from our associational leaders maybe two or three times,
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the whole 10 plus years I was pastoring.
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And when I came out to Valley Baptist with my family in Salinas,
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And preached the message. If you're a pastor, not everybody knows this,
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if you're a pastor, basically the way you get called to a church is they invite
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you out, you preach a message,
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and people listen to it, and then they vote like, hey, we like this guy, we don't like this guy.
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And if they vote high enough, and it's not majority, you really have to be up
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there or unanimous, then the church will call you as a pastor.
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So I went through that process in April of 2018 with my wife, Janet, and Dr.
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Stewart of the Great Commissioned Association was there, and Pastor CJ Wan, now Dr.
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CJ Wan of the GCA was there. And I was like, what is this? This is weird.
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Why do our associational people here at the church to be a part of this process?
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And I was honestly a little bit concerned, but in the seven and a half years since then,
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I've gone from being a GCA skeptic to being incredibly glad to be part of a
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team, of a brotherhood, of an association of churches.
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And I guess this is my 60-second commercial for the GCA.
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I mean, we're Hispanic churches, Asian churches, all kinds of different churches.
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It's just such a fantastic feeling as a pastor to know you're part of something bigger.
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And of course, the global body of Christ is
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Bigger. But to know you're part of something bigger, but also local enough that
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I can go talk to somebody if I have a need, I can get advice.
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We get together multiple times a year. So it's just great having a team to be
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a part of that doesn't tell us what to do as churches,
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but equips us to do what Jesus has told us to do.
00:18:02.990 --> 00:18:05.630
So that's a fantastic thing. Okay, hey, that's my commercial.
00:18:05.870 --> 00:18:10.090
Nobody told me to do that. I'm really just genuinely a fan.
00:18:10.370 --> 00:18:16.610
Pastor Chris, given the stats and the things we're seeing, the up and downs,
00:18:16.950 --> 00:18:20.310
there's some positive signs in the latest stats.
00:18:20.470 --> 00:18:25.170
One of the positive signs in 2024, church attendance in the United States of
00:18:25.170 --> 00:18:32.310
America broadly, 28% of people went to church on a weekly or mostly weekly basis.
00:18:32.610 --> 00:18:36.550
And that was a very low number compared to 2000. But so far,
00:18:36.690 --> 00:18:45.630
the returns for 2025 indicate that that's gone up to 32% and more young people are going to church.
00:18:45.770 --> 00:18:51.710
So we're seeing a mixture of good and bad analytics and diagnostics.
00:18:51.830 --> 00:18:56.210
What does your team think about all of that and what does that mean for the
00:18:56.210 --> 00:18:58.190
local church and what do we do with that data?
00:18:58.843 --> 00:19:02.943
Yeah, I think there are, you know, quite a few interesting trends.
00:19:03.103 --> 00:19:06.363
One, we'll wait and see how the 2025 data prove out.
00:19:06.563 --> 00:19:10.803
It always takes about two or three years for data to actually verify out because
00:19:10.803 --> 00:19:13.463
it takes a while for the data analysts to catch up.
00:19:13.583 --> 00:19:16.643
So we, you know, there's always that little caveat that I put.
00:19:16.643 --> 00:19:23.623
But I think we are encouraged that there are signs of the church declining nationwide,
00:19:23.623 --> 00:19:26.383
stabilizing, sort of flattening out.
00:19:26.563 --> 00:19:33.023
I don't know that we're seeing a ton of statistically significant growth yet.
00:19:33.023 --> 00:19:37.423
There's been some controversial and reinterpretation of whether or not young
00:19:37.423 --> 00:19:40.063
people are coming back to church in larger numbers.
00:19:40.323 --> 00:19:44.383
Some experts are currently saying yes, others saying no, we're not sure the
00:19:44.383 --> 00:19:46.523
data is actually showing that just yet.
00:19:46.643 --> 00:19:52.503
But generally speaking, we can say that people are going back to church more.
00:19:52.783 --> 00:19:58.763
Church attendance is increasing. There's some back and forth positives and negatives
00:19:58.763 --> 00:20:00.683
here. Larger churches are growing.
00:20:01.143 --> 00:20:04.903
They are. Across the United States, larger churches are growing.
00:20:05.023 --> 00:20:09.263
Now, the really troubling thing is that the vast majority of churches in the
00:20:09.263 --> 00:20:13.163
United States have less than 100 in average attendance.
00:20:13.643 --> 00:20:22.443
And LifeWay's research shows that about 40-something percent of churches that
00:20:22.443 --> 00:20:26.043
are under 50 are now in steep decline.
00:20:26.283 --> 00:20:30.723
And churches that are under 100 are more than likely to be plateaued,
00:20:30.823 --> 00:20:35.923
which means small churches are continuing to decline or plateau out.
00:20:36.423 --> 00:20:42.163
Larger churches may be adding to their attendance and their growth,
00:20:42.163 --> 00:20:48.683
and we can celebrate that, but they are a very small proportion of the churches in the United States.
00:20:49.328 --> 00:20:52.828
And certainly in our association and certainly in California,
00:20:53.068 --> 00:20:58.628
we have many communities where there are no churches that are of that significant size.
00:20:58.788 --> 00:21:02.768
So you're seeing whole communities that are beginning or segments of communities
00:21:02.768 --> 00:21:07.488
that are beginning to be disengaged from the gospel because the churches are
00:21:07.488 --> 00:21:12.028
declining to the point where there's no significant gospel witness in a neighborhood.
00:21:12.368 --> 00:21:16.368
All right. So, Pastor Chris, you're talking about kind of the dual dynamic where
00:21:16.368 --> 00:21:20.428
large churches are growing and doing really well.
00:21:20.628 --> 00:21:23.888
And small churches are fading fast.
00:21:24.148 --> 00:21:30.108
It's like the Walmartization of church. And I guess technically I pastor a medium-sized
00:21:30.108 --> 00:21:32.428
church. It's certainly not a large church.
00:21:32.588 --> 00:21:40.308
And I've been concerned about this trend for a long time. I don't know that
00:21:40.308 --> 00:21:44.348
it's super healthy for the body of Christ in the United States of America.
00:21:44.528 --> 00:21:49.388
But according to the Horizon Stewardship 2025 trends report.
00:21:49.568 --> 00:21:58.348
As you say, churches with a budget over $5 million a year reported a 91% rise
00:21:58.348 --> 00:22:04.468
in attendance and a 79% increase in giving, which is pretty astonishing.
00:22:04.708 --> 00:22:12.428
But churches with budgets of less than $100,000 are showing a big trend towards
00:22:12.428 --> 00:22:14.588
declining and stagnation.
00:22:14.908 --> 00:22:21.648
And that's pretty scary. And I imagine this podcast is probably not going to attract the
00:22:22.133 --> 00:22:28.893
Craig Groeschel's and the Joel Osteen's and the pastors of the biggest and largest
00:22:28.893 --> 00:22:31.253
and the most booming and going churches.
00:22:31.253 --> 00:22:37.273
We're probably going to have more of the people with sub $5 million a year budgets.
00:22:37.573 --> 00:22:42.733
What do we do in an atmosphere where small and medium-sized churches are,
00:22:42.833 --> 00:22:44.993
I was going to say losing ground.
00:22:45.073 --> 00:22:47.893
Of course, that's the wrong thing to say. We're not in competition.
00:22:48.113 --> 00:22:52.333
None of us are in competition, but small and medium-sized churches are shrinking
00:22:52.333 --> 00:22:54.893
and megachurches are exploding.
00:22:55.253 --> 00:23:01.233
What's the average church leader and church pastor to do in an atmosphere like that?
00:23:01.513 --> 00:23:04.753
Well, I think there's actually an exceptional opportunity here,
00:23:04.973 --> 00:23:09.113
but let me, before I jump to that opportunity, just even give you a little bit
00:23:09.113 --> 00:23:13.273
more data. it's not just smaller churches, it's older churches.
00:23:13.773 --> 00:23:20.353
Since 2019, so just in a six-year period between 2019 and 2025,
00:23:21.233 --> 00:23:28.233
churches that were founded prior to 1999 were experiencing declines of more
00:23:28.233 --> 00:23:32.293
than 10% on average. Just let that number sink in.
00:23:32.773 --> 00:23:37.473
So if you weren't founded in the last 26 years, Your church,
00:23:37.613 --> 00:23:41.853
in all likelihood, experienced a decline of 10% or more.
00:23:42.173 --> 00:23:45.293
So the older your church is, and if your church was really old,
00:23:45.653 --> 00:23:50.113
then somewhere around 50% of the churches that were founded early part of last
00:23:50.113 --> 00:23:53.533
century experienced significant decline of greater than 10%.
00:23:53.533 --> 00:23:57.493
So smaller churches, older churches are declining, and there are risks that
00:23:57.493 --> 00:23:58.533
are associated with that.
00:23:58.653 --> 00:24:04.653
We lose historic places. We lose valuable geographic locations.
00:24:04.933 --> 00:24:11.213
There are churches that when those sites close and become a strip mall or get
00:24:11.213 --> 00:24:13.193
taken over by some other place—.
00:24:13.698 --> 00:24:17.958
We lose the ability to have a significant gospel witness in whole sections of
00:24:17.958 --> 00:24:24.618
communities because we can't recover those properties as lighthouses or locations
00:24:24.618 --> 00:24:27.258
for gospel witness, certainly very easily.
00:24:27.258 --> 00:24:34.598
In that way, there is perhaps an even more challenging environment there.
00:24:34.678 --> 00:24:40.678
But I think there is an opportunity in this dynamic that we find ourselves.
00:24:40.678 --> 00:24:45.498
Number one, if you are one of those larger churches and God is blessing you
00:24:45.498 --> 00:24:50.738
and you are flourishing, you have an opportunity to become a massive sending church.
00:24:50.938 --> 00:24:55.218
You have capacities that the smaller churches do not have.
00:24:55.398 --> 00:25:01.438
And praise God that even within our own SBC family, we have many of these churches
00:25:01.438 --> 00:25:03.518
that are doing that very thing.
00:25:03.778 --> 00:25:09.218
Churches of 400 people that are sending out 50 people to go plant another church
00:25:09.218 --> 00:25:14.058
or churches of thousands that are sending out hundreds of missionaries.
00:25:14.238 --> 00:25:17.418
And there are many healthy examples of churches that,
00:25:18.100 --> 00:25:25.100
take their size and their financial resources, and they're using that to become sending churches.
00:25:26.060 --> 00:25:29.480
And I thank God for those churches that have those capacities.
00:25:29.740 --> 00:25:35.160
They help fund things like replants and church plants and missionaries.
00:25:35.320 --> 00:25:39.280
In our own association, we have several larger congregations,
00:25:39.400 --> 00:25:41.640
and you know what? They are incredibly generous.
00:25:41.920 --> 00:25:47.760
They give radically. They give sacrificially in ways that cost their congregation
00:25:47.760 --> 00:25:53.480
in order to see churches planted here in the United States and around the world.
00:25:53.660 --> 00:25:57.120
So we're grateful for those churches that have those capacities.
00:25:57.440 --> 00:26:02.520
Now, for the smaller churches, there's an opportunity here, I believe,
00:26:02.620 --> 00:26:09.320
for them to say, look, we may never be a church of 5,000. We may never be a church of 500.
00:26:09.420 --> 00:26:14.780
But we can be a persistently growing church. and,
00:26:15.489 --> 00:26:20.629
We can be a church that is persistently flourishing, a church that is persistently
00:26:20.629 --> 00:26:22.309
reaching people with the gospel.
00:26:22.549 --> 00:26:26.909
And there is a little bit of a way that smaller churches can look at bigger
00:26:26.909 --> 00:26:30.689
churches and sort of resent them for their fruitfulness, their success.
00:26:31.049 --> 00:26:35.649
And there are certainly many unhealthy expressions of large churches that are
00:26:35.649 --> 00:26:38.609
sort of the Walmartization, as you said earlier.
00:26:38.609 --> 00:26:43.709
There's a church today that it came out in a report that this church is holding
00:26:43.709 --> 00:26:46.749
over $330 million in assets.
00:26:47.869 --> 00:26:52.189
I'm not sure that is healthy for any church of any size, to be honest.
00:26:52.509 --> 00:26:55.609
But a lot depends on what you do with those assets, right?
00:26:56.109 --> 00:27:02.289
And so there are many churches that are smaller that need to sort of get over
00:27:02.289 --> 00:27:09.109
their envy and be stirred up into asking the question, what is our mission field?
00:27:09.349 --> 00:27:13.529
See, those big churches in many ways are not going to be able to reach many
00:27:13.529 --> 00:27:17.509
of our smaller communities. For example, you live in Salinas, right?
00:27:17.709 --> 00:27:23.209
There's going to be a cap in Salinas as to the size of a church there or in
00:27:23.209 --> 00:27:26.049
a smaller community like Greenfield, right?
00:27:26.369 --> 00:27:29.989
But the Greenfield, which is a small farming community just south of where Pastor
00:27:29.989 --> 00:27:32.629
Chase lives, they need the gospel of Jesus Christ.
00:27:32.749 --> 00:27:37.129
And we've got a church there where a very faithful pastor is sharing the gospel
00:27:37.129 --> 00:27:40.429
and trying to witness and reach the people of that community.
00:27:40.729 --> 00:27:45.589
So smaller churches have different geographical assignments, perhaps,
00:27:45.869 --> 00:27:51.669
but they need to see their mission field as their mission field and their responsibility
00:27:51.669 --> 00:27:57.729
for reaching people there, and that it is possible for them to flourish as well.
00:27:57.829 --> 00:28:01.149
They're going to have to accept some challenging realities.
00:28:01.529 --> 00:28:08.149
Our region of California, we pretty much know that it's going to be hard for
00:28:08.149 --> 00:28:10.229
a church to be self-sustaining.
00:28:10.718 --> 00:28:16.318
Unless they have between 120 and 150 regular members.
00:28:16.398 --> 00:28:22.798
They've got to have between 120 and 150 regular members if they want to have a full-time pastor.
00:28:23.138 --> 00:28:27.858
Now, there are many wonderful bivocational, co-vocational pastors serving in
00:28:27.858 --> 00:28:32.178
our association, but if a church wants to have a full-time pastor,
00:28:32.338 --> 00:28:37.058
they've got to recognize there's a certain amount of sustainability that has to be achieved.
00:28:37.278 --> 00:28:43.418
And that is part of their responsibility, is to get to that place of being self-sustaining
00:28:43.418 --> 00:28:49.398
in a way that says, hey, we're not going to be dependent on outside churches forever.
00:28:49.798 --> 00:28:52.818
Now, sometimes you need some outside help. And that's one of the things our
00:28:52.818 --> 00:28:56.378
team does is we help connect churches to partners, larger churches,
00:28:56.578 --> 00:29:01.558
in fact, many times who want to help these churches come back to a place of flourishing.
00:29:01.758 --> 00:29:07.178
But in almost every community we serve in, It's not an impossibility to reach
00:29:07.178 --> 00:29:13.718
120 or 150 or 200 people with persistent effort in evangelism,
00:29:14.198 --> 00:29:18.498
growth in discipleship, and maturity of the believers. It really isn't.
00:29:18.598 --> 00:29:22.558
At that point, the churches can begin to say, hey, we may be a small church,
00:29:22.658 --> 00:29:24.438
but we are still a flourishing church.
00:29:24.618 --> 00:29:28.238
We're a church that's growing. We're reaching lost people. We're seeing people
00:29:28.238 --> 00:29:32.658
sent out into the harvest field, and we're seeing the kingdom come in our communities.
00:29:33.098 --> 00:29:38.538
Absolutely. Well, hey, look, all this talk and stats and thinking about big
00:29:38.538 --> 00:29:42.058
churches, little churches decline and growing and flourishing,
00:29:42.218 --> 00:29:43.978
making me thirsty, brother.
00:29:44.398 --> 00:29:45.458
Thirsty. Me too.
00:29:45.698 --> 00:29:51.238
This is a very odd drink that Miss Grace has acquired for us. Tell me about it.
00:29:51.358 --> 00:29:55.998
This is Ben Shaw's Dandelion and Burdick.
00:29:56.702 --> 00:30:00.522
Now, I did not know what Burdick was.
00:30:00.662 --> 00:30:00.922
Nope.
00:30:01.702 --> 00:30:07.562
Pastor Chase, I just did not. I understand Burdick is like a prickly thistle,
00:30:07.682 --> 00:30:15.282
and apparently it's like traditionally used in Eastern medicine.
00:30:15.302 --> 00:30:21.402
It's supposed to have antioxidant, diuretic, and blood sugar lowering benefits.
00:30:21.802 --> 00:30:25.342
Okay, that's pretty good. I like to eat candy, so that helps me.
00:30:25.682 --> 00:30:29.262
Right. And this is a British, I think this is a British.
00:30:29.602 --> 00:30:34.382
Oh, it's definitely British. Okay. In fact, just doing a little bit of research, Mr.
00:30:34.562 --> 00:30:39.522
Ben Shaw was from Huddersfield, United Kingdom, created a bunch of sodas in
00:30:39.522 --> 00:30:46.142
the Civil War era of American history or just right around there, 1860s, 1870s.
00:30:46.142 --> 00:30:52.002
They have dandelion and Burdick, cloudy lemonade, cream soda,
00:30:52.162 --> 00:30:57.802
root beer, and bitter shandy, which I have no idea what that is.
00:30:57.902 --> 00:30:59.002
It sounds interesting, though.
00:30:59.342 --> 00:30:59.482
Yeah.
00:30:59.822 --> 00:31:03.682
Now, before I crack this open and drink it, I got to say this.
00:31:03.842 --> 00:31:06.822
I kind of know what a dandelion is.
00:31:07.042 --> 00:31:13.722
Right. And I kind of think it looks like a weed that has flowers.
00:31:13.722 --> 00:31:16.522
And dandelions are the things that
00:31:16.522 --> 00:31:21.662
they got the white puff ball you like you blow them and blow the seeds right
00:31:21.662 --> 00:31:26.082
and i know what a burdick is like you told us it looks like a thistle what i'm
00:31:26.082 --> 00:31:33.422
wondering is what possessed ben shaw to look at these two weeds and say i'm
00:31:33.422 --> 00:31:35.662
thirsty let's make a drink
00:31:36.447 --> 00:31:41.047
Exactly. Well, I mean, they have these purple or pink flowers, right?
00:31:41.447 --> 00:31:45.167
And apparently they're weeds. They like grow everywhere.
00:31:45.447 --> 00:31:49.547
Like once you get them started, they're just growing. So maybe he just needed
00:31:49.547 --> 00:31:51.547
to hack down some weeds and everything.
00:31:51.827 --> 00:31:55.887
You know, the Japanese call the Burdick the Gobo.
00:31:56.047 --> 00:31:57.967
I guess. Oh, nice. Okay.
00:31:58.107 --> 00:32:02.907
They cook the root in some stir fries and stuff.
00:32:03.087 --> 00:32:08.027
And I'm not sure this sounds good before we taste the soda, but apparently the
00:32:08.027 --> 00:32:10.807
root has a bitter, muddy taste.
00:32:11.407 --> 00:32:15.027
And I am thinking that is not going to be good if that's what this soda tastes like.
00:32:15.527 --> 00:32:21.227
I've had dandelion tea before, and it's not like Milo's sweet tea.
00:32:21.707 --> 00:32:26.467
It tastes like you would kind of think. Like if you put a bunch of weeds in
00:32:26.467 --> 00:32:29.027
water and drank it, that's what it tastes like.
00:32:29.247 --> 00:32:33.507
Well, this particular soda, I noticed it has not only sugar in it,
00:32:33.827 --> 00:32:39.367
it has other sweeteners as well, like saccharin and sucralose.
00:32:39.507 --> 00:32:45.207
So they've had to put a good amount of sugar in here into this thing to make it taste something.
00:32:46.427 --> 00:32:48.047
I mean, we're going to have to try it, right?
00:32:48.167 --> 00:32:50.727
Yeah, we got to try it now. I mean, baby bitch, all right.
00:32:52.187 --> 00:32:53.167
Baby bitch, all right.
00:32:53.387 --> 00:32:54.007
Okay, I'm ready.
00:32:56.307 --> 00:32:58.287
Not a lot of fizz i
00:32:58.287 --> 00:33:01.767
I'm not getting any real scent off of this are you.
00:33:01.767 --> 00:33:07.567
Well see here's my problem i've had a cold kind of deal and it sort of blasted
00:33:07.567 --> 00:33:14.147
up my uh my my aroma sniffing ability a little bit well i do smell something
00:33:14.147 --> 00:33:20.027
okay maybe i'm imagining it smells great because the bottle is purple right
00:33:20.027 --> 00:33:22.367
Well here we go salute.
00:33:22.367 --> 00:33:33.847
Pledge wow i like it i like it a lot that kind of tastes licorice to me
00:33:34.467 --> 00:33:40.287
It definitely has like that sort of herbally flavor, but I feel like I'm drinking purple.
00:33:40.567 --> 00:33:44.627
Yeah. I don't know what that means, but it's not what I thought a dandelion
00:33:44.627 --> 00:33:46.067
or a burdick would taste like.
00:33:46.247 --> 00:33:48.987
No, no. There's no muddy aftertaste.
00:33:48.987 --> 00:33:51.127
No. It's very clean.
00:33:51.287 --> 00:33:54.367
It's clean. It's refreshing. This is a good soda.
00:33:54.527 --> 00:33:58.727
I would drink this. I don't know what kind of benefits it would have for our
00:33:58.727 --> 00:34:00.927
blood sugar here, considering.
00:34:01.487 --> 00:34:03.627
Considering they packed it full of sugar, right?
00:34:03.947 --> 00:34:13.207
Okay, it has 72 kilojoules or 17, oh no, okay, just 17 calories.
00:34:13.507 --> 00:34:18.767
So it looks like the sucralose and the saccharin are doing some heavy lifting here.
00:34:19.407 --> 00:34:19.587
Yeah.
00:34:19.887 --> 00:34:24.947
17 calories is not bad for a can. Yeah, I'm a fan. I'm a fan.
00:34:25.167 --> 00:34:30.167
Okay. And by the way, they said this is suitable for vegetarians and vegans.
00:34:30.167 --> 00:34:36.447
So all of the vegetarians and vegans in our crowd, you can try this Mr.
00:34:36.587 --> 00:34:40.187
Ben Shaw's Dandelion and Burdick soda.
00:34:40.187 --> 00:34:45.787
I'm going to assume our upcoming review of bacon soda, which we have.
00:34:45.867 --> 00:34:46.467
We do have that.
00:34:46.467 --> 00:34:50.007
Is not suitable for vegans and vegetarians.
00:34:50.227 --> 00:34:52.387
But the ranch dressing one might be.
00:34:52.587 --> 00:34:57.627
Oh, it might be. Yeah, yeah. Well, of course, that kind of has a dairy sound to it, too.
00:34:58.187 --> 00:35:02.407
Can a vegetarian not drink a Coke Zero or a Mountain Dew? I don't know.
00:35:02.547 --> 00:35:05.447
We will have to ask some of our vegetarian and vegan friends.
00:35:05.687 --> 00:35:10.407
I'm going to ask my friend, Dr. Google. Vegans drink Coke Zero.
00:35:10.967 --> 00:35:17.367
Yes, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar is vegan because it contains no animal-derived ingredients.
00:35:17.707 --> 00:35:21.547
Oh, that's good. That's good. I was worried about our vegan friends there for a minute.
00:35:21.767 --> 00:35:25.267
Well, you know, as to the motivations for making this, Apparently,
00:35:25.467 --> 00:35:30.127
it is an invasive, noxious weed, and it's very difficult to eradicate.
00:35:30.307 --> 00:35:35.387
So maybe you just boil it up so that you can say, hey, we got these weeds.
00:35:35.387 --> 00:35:36.927
We got to do something with it.
00:35:37.429 --> 00:35:43.549
So it's maybe like the 1800s equivalent of how they used to put invaders heads on pikes.
00:35:43.809 --> 00:35:48.709
Like you make a few of these weeds into a soda and the weeds kind of get scared
00:35:48.709 --> 00:35:51.009
and they're like, okay, we'll let you be.
00:35:51.149 --> 00:35:53.769
We don't want to be canned like that.
00:35:54.209 --> 00:35:57.909
Ben Shaw, he seems to be a little, he's a bit of a creative leader.
00:35:58.149 --> 00:36:00.969
So we don't know what's going through his mind.
00:36:01.289 --> 00:36:08.489
Exactly. So I'm going to go ahead and give my, we do this out of zero to five Spurgeons, right?
00:36:09.069 --> 00:36:13.329
Yes. I'm going to, I'm probably going to come in a little bit lower than you, Pastor Chase.
00:36:13.489 --> 00:36:17.269
I'm going to give this a, I'm going to give this a solid three Spurgeons.
00:36:17.409 --> 00:36:19.569
I would pick it up. I would drink it if I was really thirsty,
00:36:19.569 --> 00:36:23.249
but I don't know that I would go pursue this here.
00:36:23.389 --> 00:36:25.809
But I think you're going to come up with a different Spurge.
00:36:26.409 --> 00:36:30.789
I'm going to give you a higher number because I really like the flavor of this.
00:36:30.789 --> 00:36:33.909
Now, I'm going to give it four out of five Spurgeons.
00:36:34.129 --> 00:36:38.409
Now, the only reason not four and a half, four and a quarter or five Spurgeons
00:36:38.409 --> 00:36:45.029
is because it doesn't have the bite that I look for in a Coke Zero.
00:36:45.229 --> 00:36:48.489
I want a little bit of burn.
00:36:48.709 --> 00:36:53.369
It wakes you up. It shakes you up. But when I drink, I want my throat to feel
00:36:53.369 --> 00:36:55.589
like I'm drinking something. There you go.
00:36:56.049 --> 00:37:00.449
This goes down smooth, which might be good for somebody. But for me,
00:37:00.649 --> 00:37:05.949
I want a little bit more bite in my Ben Shaw's Dandelite and Burdick. Therefore...
00:37:06.344 --> 00:37:11.684
Great flavor, four out of five spurs. All right, well, as I enjoy this delicious
00:37:11.684 --> 00:37:15.964
dandelion and burdock beverage, let's go back into our main topic.
00:37:16.204 --> 00:37:19.284
We don't have a ton of time left, but let's cover a little bit,
00:37:19.564 --> 00:37:25.264
some resources for people who are in a situation where they want to learn to
00:37:25.264 --> 00:37:26.464
help their church flourish.
00:37:26.724 --> 00:37:33.364
And I'm going to ask you for a case study, maybe a story of a church you worked
00:37:33.364 --> 00:37:38.904
with that you saw God do things to help it go from
00:37:39.437 --> 00:37:42.537
Unhealthy to healthy, unflourishing to flourishing.
00:37:42.697 --> 00:37:46.137
And while you think about what might be a good story there, I'll give you a
00:37:46.137 --> 00:37:51.897
practical tip because I think both of us want this podcast and these videos
00:37:51.897 --> 00:37:59.177
to be practical helps for people who are in church leadership or care about their church.
00:37:59.317 --> 00:38:03.217
And one of the things, the numbers that Pastor Chris talked about and the numbers
00:38:03.217 --> 00:38:08.797
that I discovered as well as we research this episode is there may be an increase
00:38:08.797 --> 00:38:12.717
in young people going to church in the last couple of years,
00:38:12.717 --> 00:38:19.517
but there is almost certainly a decline in older people going to church.
00:38:20.157 --> 00:38:27.237
This is like numbers across the board. It's very kind of shocking how significantly
00:38:27.237 --> 00:38:31.377
the decline is, but somewhere in the neighborhood of older people,
00:38:31.977 --> 00:38:40.477
say Gen X and older than Gen X are attending 10, 11, 12, 8 less church gatherings
00:38:40.477 --> 00:38:46.037
on average per year than they did just 20 years ago.
00:38:46.357 --> 00:38:51.397
And so one of the things our church has found that has been very practical to
00:38:51.397 --> 00:38:58.657
help with that, some people have this view of older people that they are done.
00:38:58.897 --> 00:39:03.417
They're fans or dead weight or some dumb things like that.
00:39:03.977 --> 00:39:08.957
And so therefore older people come to church, they sit, they don't do anything.
00:39:09.177 --> 00:39:12.237
People are nice to them, but that's it.
00:39:12.697 --> 00:39:19.737
Like 60 year old NFL player can't play in the game anymore, except the church is not the NFL.00:39:19.957 --> 00:39:22.617
These people that are older00:39:23.395 --> 00:39:28.335
Have still a ton to contribute. When I first came to Valley Baptist,00:39:28.575 --> 00:39:34.915
we had a member named Eileen Fulton, who sometimes had to walk with a walker.00:39:35.095 --> 00:39:42.095
She was quite up there age-wise, and she has since passed into glory.00:39:42.295 --> 00:39:49.495
But I will tell you that Miss Eileen was a Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle.00:39:49.935 --> 00:39:57.315
She was a giant among us and not because she had an overwhelming personality00:39:57.315 --> 00:40:03.755
or the oratorial giftings of Charles Spurgeon or she gave millions to the church00:40:03.755 --> 00:40:05.515
or anything along those lines.00:40:05.675 --> 00:40:08.315
I mean, I have no idea who gives what to the church. That's not my business.00:40:08.475 --> 00:40:15.875
But Miss Eulene would talk to everybody she didn't know and she would sit with them.00:40:16.055 --> 00:40:21.815
She would welcome them, not like a used car salesman, like a wise,00:40:22.115 --> 00:40:24.295
thoughtful, listening grandmother.00:40:24.615 --> 00:40:32.455
And when we lost her, we lost a perennial all-star MVP.00:40:32.895 --> 00:40:37.255
And so I say all that to say, if you're a church leader, pastor,00:40:37.575 --> 00:40:42.275
whatever, don't think of your older members as just pew sitters.00:40:42.495 --> 00:40:44.375
Let them have a role.00:40:44.655 --> 00:40:49.215
Some of our older members, they speak on Sunday morning, they share,00:40:49.375 --> 00:40:51.575
they exhort, they greet, they help out.00:40:51.735 --> 00:41:00.375
We couldn't live without them. But if you lead the church like you can live without them, you will.00:41:01.079 --> 00:41:04.799
Hmm. That's good. Good insight right there. Amen.00:41:05.179 --> 00:41:09.379
Well, I know that our time is short, but I'm going to maybe just do this and00:41:09.379 --> 00:41:12.819
we may have to pick up some of those practical tips, Pastor Chase,00:41:12.919 --> 00:41:16.499
I think maybe in another episode, but I do want to give some people some hope.00:41:16.599 --> 00:41:20.699
And I want to talk about a church that had senior adults only in it.00:41:20.899 --> 00:41:26.019
Our First Baptist Church in Nipomo, California, when they invited our associational00:41:26.019 --> 00:41:30.679
team in, they were down to six senior adult women.00:41:30.819 --> 00:41:35.339
I believe the youngest woman in the group was over 55.00:41:35.859 --> 00:41:40.759
So six senior adult women, that was it, and a pastor and his wife that were00:41:40.759 --> 00:41:43.659
ready to retire, and they didn't want their church to die.00:41:44.208 --> 00:41:48.028
And over the past four years, that church has been on quite the journey.00:41:48.168 --> 00:41:54.468
That church had not seen any outside baptisms in some—I can't remember the exact number.00:41:54.508 --> 00:41:56.988
I think it was like 10, 15 years at all.00:41:57.128 --> 00:41:59.468
They were a church that was clearly in decline.00:41:59.628 --> 00:42:03.968
They're a church in a significant property, but they couldn't really maintain00:42:03.968 --> 00:42:05.528
it. They didn't have the resources.00:42:05.728 --> 00:42:10.688
They got partnered up with our association, with some of our associational churches.00:42:10.948 --> 00:42:16.228
And they still are on their renewal journey. They're not yet to the place of00:42:16.228 --> 00:42:23.328
being fully self-sustaining, and that journey has not been a linear progression either.00:42:23.408 --> 00:42:25.248
It's not just been straightforward.00:42:25.508 --> 00:42:29.248
They didn't shoot from 6,000 to 6,000 overnight, right?00:42:29.488 --> 00:42:36.048
But that church persistently runs right now about 60 to 75, had peak worship00:42:36.048 --> 00:42:39.948
services in the last couple of years of 199 people.00:42:39.948 --> 00:42:45.388
But that church has baptized in just the past few months about, I think, six people.00:42:45.808 --> 00:42:51.588
Last year, that tiny little church, which had six senior adult women in it when00:42:51.588 --> 00:42:55.208
they entered into a process of strategic and deliberate renewal,00:42:55.408 --> 00:42:58.648
that church baptized 18 new believers.00:42:58.968 --> 00:43:04.168
Wow. And that church saw their youth group grow to where it was three times00:43:04.168 --> 00:43:07.288
the size of the original church, just the youth group alone.00:43:07.288 --> 00:43:12.288
And they've had a lot of great work there under the leadership of Pastor Michael Denton.00:43:12.528 --> 00:43:16.228
And like I said, it has not been easy. It has not been a linear journey.00:43:16.428 --> 00:43:19.528
It is not a one-size-fits-all formula.00:43:19.528 --> 00:43:23.868
But it is a church that had people in it, senior adult people,00:43:24.008 --> 00:43:31.828
who were willing to take a risk and willing to say they did not want to see this church die.00:43:32.695 --> 00:43:38.755
And I think that's where senior adults can leverage their moral weight and their00:43:38.755 --> 00:43:43.095
experiential weight and say, we are committed to seeing the next generation00:43:43.095 --> 00:43:44.615
reached with the gospel.00:43:44.835 --> 00:43:48.395
Some of the mightiest prayer warriors, the greatest greeters,00:43:48.575 --> 00:43:52.255
the people that you were talking about are the senior adults in the church, or they can be.00:43:52.435 --> 00:43:57.355
And I do think pastors and leaders need to invite them into that journey.00:43:57.355 --> 00:44:02.755
And I do think I would say a word to senior adults that are in the churches.00:44:02.955 --> 00:44:06.515
You know, God has never called you to retirement from his kingdom.00:44:06.755 --> 00:44:11.795
You don't get to sit back and say, well, Lord, I know that you've given me another00:44:11.795 --> 00:44:18.995
25 years, my last 25 years of life, and I want to coast spiritually until you call me home.00:44:19.295 --> 00:44:23.795
If he's given you those 25 years or those last 20 years after you retire,00:44:23.795 --> 00:44:27.335
then there is a mission field for you.00:44:27.655 --> 00:44:32.435
And that's true for young adults. It's true for adults. It's true for children.00:44:32.655 --> 00:44:36.455
And it is true for senior adults in the church, that if you are in a church.00:44:36.935 --> 00:44:38.715
God has a mission for you.00:44:38.855 --> 00:44:43.835
And I think that that's one of the big distinguishing markers of flourishing churches,00:44:43.835 --> 00:44:48.595
where a church has a sense where every member is on mission,00:44:48.595 --> 00:44:54.495
you can pretty much be guaranteed that church is moving towards flourishing or will be flourishing.00:44:54.735 --> 00:44:58.495
Where the members stop seeing themselves as being on mission,00:44:58.755 --> 00:45:03.475
that's when the church begins to enter into a period of decline or enters into00:45:03.475 --> 00:45:05.795
a period of plateau or stagnation.00:45:06.135 --> 00:45:12.515
Excellent and well said. Well, for my part, I will close this out with a resource00:45:12.515 --> 00:45:16.195
that I think will be helpful for anybody considering flourishing.00:45:16.797 --> 00:45:21.077
Church health, church flourishing, church revitalization. And then I'll kick00:45:21.077 --> 00:45:25.237
it back over to Pastor Chris for his last thoughts and last words.00:45:25.397 --> 00:45:28.537
But you're initially going to dismiss this, I think, listener,00:45:28.817 --> 00:45:33.257
as a possible help for your church flourishing journey.00:45:33.437 --> 00:45:38.437
But this is the life and diary of David Brainerd.00:45:38.597 --> 00:45:45.837
Now, if you don't know who that is, he was a missionary to the American Indians in the early 1700s.00:45:45.917 --> 00:45:51.757
He lived 29 years and died of consumption or tuberculosis.00:45:52.157 --> 00:45:58.477
And the question is, okay, what is a diary of an old dude who lived back in00:45:58.477 --> 00:46:01.597
the day before the United States became the United States?00:46:01.777 --> 00:46:07.417
How can that help me with church revitalization? And here's how it can help you.00:46:07.597 --> 00:46:14.177
When you read the diary of David Brainerd, who was mightily used of God to reach00:46:14.177 --> 00:46:20.157
Native Americans with the gospel, you will understand so much more about ministry.00:46:20.417 --> 00:46:24.237
Whether you're a pastor or not, missionary or not, paid or not,00:46:24.657 --> 00:46:28.257
Sunday school teacher or not, you will understand that ministry in the kingdom00:46:28.257 --> 00:46:30.857
of God is loaded with ups and downs.00:46:31.097 --> 00:46:34.117
There are massive emotional struggles.00:46:34.417 --> 00:46:38.697
You will understand that depression is a real thing, and God is faithful even00:46:38.697 --> 00:46:39.957
in the midst of depression.00:46:40.197 --> 00:46:45.437
You will understand that ministry has tons of wins and tons of losses,00:46:45.437 --> 00:46:53.837
and that the only way to be fruitful and go forward is to rely on God in prayer and abide,00:46:54.037 --> 00:46:56.937
just like Jesus said in John 15.00:46:57.337 --> 00:47:01.437
And the Diary of David Brainerd is, you can buy it on Amazon or whatever,00:47:01.597 --> 00:47:06.197
there's all sorts of different versions of it you can get, is such a helpful00:47:06.197 --> 00:47:09.097
tool for church flourishing.00:47:09.357 --> 00:47:15.857
Not that you'll be able to put his exact strategy to use in your next Sunday00:47:15.857 --> 00:47:20.777
outreach or whatever, but it will equip you to be a00:47:21.298 --> 00:47:25.918
key part of God's desire to bring health to your church.00:47:26.058 --> 00:47:30.318
And the last thing I'll say is this, if you're looking for a team to join,00:47:30.658 --> 00:47:34.998
to partner with, if you're part of a church that doesn't have a team,00:47:35.218 --> 00:47:40.118
doesn't have an association, well, you go to our website, everychurchflourishing.com,00:47:41.638 --> 00:47:43.538
GCASBC, and hit us up.00:47:43.678 --> 00:47:46.998
We would love to welcome you to part of our teammates.00:47:47.178 --> 00:47:49.678
Pastor Chris, do you have any parting words?00:47:50.278 --> 00:47:53.378
Well, here's my closing thought, and that is this. You know,00:47:53.598 --> 00:47:58.058
our desire is to see every church come to a place of flourishing.00:47:58.078 --> 00:47:59.578
And here's some good news.00:47:59.678 --> 00:48:04.078
We believe in a God who brought his son out of the grave.00:48:04.338 --> 00:48:09.698
And the hope of church renewal is not found in the perfection of human methods00:48:09.698 --> 00:48:11.658
or our own strengths or our own wisdom,00:48:11.858 --> 00:48:17.718
but in the same God whose resurrection power is at work within the lives of00:48:17.718 --> 00:48:20.418
the people who are inside our churches.00:48:20.418 --> 00:48:25.498
That resurrection power that took us from spiritual death into spiritual life00:48:25.498 --> 00:48:28.358
is at work in our churches to this day.00:48:28.478 --> 00:48:32.538
And I believe that God wants to see our churches come to a place,00:48:32.698 --> 00:48:38.938
not only of just surviving, but a place of thriving and growth and missional engagement.00:48:38.938 --> 00:48:43.998
And we want to see the world and the communities around us transformed by the00:48:43.998 --> 00:48:46.478
gospel of Jesus Christ through that power.00:48:46.618 --> 00:48:51.078
So that's our hope here on Every Church Flourishing, and we're glad you guys are here.00:48:51.458 --> 00:48:55.898
Good closing thoughts. Well, folks, check out our website, everychurchflourishing.com.00:48:56.038 --> 00:49:00.398
Tell a friend, tell a family member, share the post on social media,00:49:00.598 --> 00:49:01.678
all that kind of good stuff.00:49:01.858 --> 00:49:07.058
The way these kind of podcasts grow is by word of mouth, the same way the gospel00:49:07.058 --> 00:49:09.358
of Jesus Christ spread throughout the known world.00:49:09.598 --> 00:49:14.138
So share the word, share the podcast. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. Godspeed.
